Day 304 - 22 Nov 96 - Page 02
1 Friday, 22 November 1996
2
3 MR. MORRIS: Sorry about the delay this morning. I will
4 shorten this whole tidying up of the Employment Section.
5 There is something I wanted to hand over, which is a
6 statement as regards when the Wages Councils came into
7 effect and were abolished, that kind of stuff. It is from
8 Mr. Pearson with some sections of the relevant Acts but,
9 because the fax came out poor, maybe you could use that as
10 an aid to uncover the relevant Act yourself.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Very well. Thank you.
13
14 MR. MORRIS: Now, as far as I understand the situation, and
15 I do not have the full Acts, up until the 1986 Act took
16 effect -- it took effect from 25th September 1986
17 (according to Mr. Pearson) -- but different sections of it
18 might have come in at different times, but it is possible
19 that the overtime rates up to that point applied until the
20 beginning of 1987, but without having the full Acts I
21 cannot tell. It does say in the Act when each section
22 comes into play. But, as far as I can see, up to the end
23 of 1986 the overtime rates had to incorporate the unsocial
24 hours. So the one and a half times rate for overtime was
25 on top of the unsocial hours increment.
26
27 Then, after the 1986 Act came into effect, the one and a
28 half times rate applied until, as far as I can see, the
29 Wages Councils and Wages Acts were repealed on 30th August
30 1993, according to Mr. Pearson in his brief statement
31 here. My advice has been that a breach of contract, which
32 is the Crew Handbook of course in this case, would be
33 something that was a winable issue at an appeal tribunal,
34 an industrial tribunal. It is an unlawful offence which
35 applies to break times and all the other matters laid out
36 in the Crew Handbook.
37
38 Apparently, what happened is that a lot of what were
39 statutory entitlements up to 1986 were not statutory any
40 longer afterwards, but were still in the contracts that
41 were being signed and agreed by companies with staff, and
42 that is what seems to have happened with McDonald's, to a
43 large extent, after 1986, in which case they are bound by
44 that contract. That is about as much as I can say on that.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: The other couple of things. If it is helpful to
49 you, if I can refer you to the wage slips of Joanne Bishop,
50 who, you remember, was not called. They are all in the
51 Defendants' original list of documents, bundle 4 number
52 117.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: I have not got any bundle pages, but she was
57 generally working well under 39 hours a week -- well, under
58 78 hours a fortnight. Because of McDonald's fortnightly
59 pay system it is impossible to tell how many hours people
60 work in a week, unfortunately. But for the weeks ending
